It's certainly one of the reasons, although they also do it to escape or distract from what feels like overwhelming negative emotions.
But yeah, I'm with you on the negative emotions > no emotions. First time I got really depressed, I noticed and celebrated (as much as I was able) when I started being able to feel things again, even though most of those feelings were variations on 'sad'.
I am still quite new to LW, so I apologize if this is something that has been discussed before (I did try and search).
I would't normally post such a thing, as I try not to make a habit of complaining my problems to others, but a solution to this would likely benefit other rationalists (at least that's the excuse I made to myself).
Essentially, I am currently in a psychological state in which I simply have no strong values. There is no state of the world that I can imagine the world being in that generates a strong emotional reaction. Ever. In fact, I rarely experience strong emotions at all. When I do, I savor them whether they're positive or negative. I do have some preferences; I would somewhat prefer the world to be some ways than others, but never strongly. I prefer to feel pleasure rather than pain; I prefer the world to be a good place than a bad one, but not by much. Even my desire to have values seems to be a mere preference in much the same way. I have nothing to protect.
Is there any good solution to this?